Karsten Pflum
Idhax
Rump Recordings
Karsten Pflum, or Dane Jacob Helverskov Madsen's latest release is thoroughly quirky, but only for those of you who enjoy forays into the frontiers of musical weirdness. To really get into this album, appreciation of minimalist techno is a must as Madsen's arrangements can get particularly tedious (as is the case with the majority of experimental stuff). There are moments on "Idhax" where the music begins to make sense, such as an unusually fully constructed beat towards the end of "Impulse 11", reminiscent of the animated psy-trance of Shpongle or Infected Mushroom. This is, however, a rare moment on the album, which is less a gem of talented composition and more a rambling, haphazard journey from one electronic beep to another. Madsen himself summed it up nicely by naming one of the tracks "No target".
- Jude Ainsworth